I probably field more
questions from fellow hunters — folks I meet or ones unlucky enough to sit
through one of my seminars — about food plotting than almost any other aspect
of deer hunting. Whitetailers are endlessly curious about the three W’s (what,
when, where) and the big H (how) to plant food plots. That’s understandable,
and I love chatting about those topics with fellow deer hunting addicts.
But the question that
continually surprises me is, “Why?” This is typically the query of hunters who
live in farm country and question the time and effort required to plant deer
food when whitetails have easy access to some of the most prime agricultural
food on the planet.
Of course, those
concerns are legitimate. They just don’t go deep enough into the lives of deer.
I have farm fields next to my front yard, so I know well the power and
attraction of a bean, corn or alfalfa field to a hungry deer. With all respect
to the publishers of this magazine, at certain times of the year, no food plot
seed can compete with a modern agricultural field. Those acres devoted to row
crops and green fodder produce tons of nutrition per acre and are often so
sprawling that a herd of whitetails couldn’t wipe them out on a bet.
The problem with
modern agriculture is that it’s rarely on the landscape when deer need it
most. That’s why food plots are a great idea in farm country. In fact, I’d
argue they’re essential, at least for serious deer managers, and here’s why.
The Feast-and-Famine Equation
Not long ago, ag fields were a bounty of food, even after
harvest. Downed stalks and stems lay everywhere, and grain that escaped the
combine or picker provided ample food for any deer willing to do a little
nosing around. In fact, I remember many picked fields being even more
attractive to whitetails after they’d been cut than before. Although there was
obviously less food in terms of tonnage, it was (at least in my view) more
accessible to deer, which are essentially lazy critters. In my experience, if
you give a buck the option of chewing kernels off five cobs of corn on the
stalk or eating the loose kernels of one cob on the ground, he’ll pick the
loose kernels almost every time.
Unfortunately, the loose-kernel option is getting tougher for
modern whitetails to find. Today’s uber-efficient combines leave little, if
any, waste. And across much of the country’s ag country, the fall plow comes as
quickly behind the combine as farmers can manage. What was once a salad bar of
waste grain and stalk residue is now a sea of black dirt.
“Farm-country whitetails have the best possible world in summer
and early fall,” said Steve Scott, Whitetail Institute vice president. “The
problem is, after those fall plows come out, there’s very little food left, at
a time of year when it’s most critical for deer.”
Worse, fall plowing creates a double-whammy for deer.
“Not only does it cover up any waste grain for late fall and
winter, but there’s nothing on the landscape in spring,” Scott said. “That’s
when does are in the latter stage of pregnancy and bucks are growing antlers.
Both those requirements call for a high-protein food source, and plowed fields
obviously don’t have that.”
Plugging the Hole
Enter the food plot, the ideal solution for plugging the leaky
bucket that represents whitetail food sources in the wake of fall plowing. By strategically
planting a combination of annual and perennial food plots, managers can meet
the year-round nutritional needs of whitetails and create better hunting
opportunities.
Perennial plantings are the poster child for fundamental food
plotting. For a green food source packed with nutrition, nothing comes close
to clover. Perhaps that’s why Imperial Whitetail clover remains the star player
in a Whitetail Institute lineup that contains 21 products.
“Not only is Imperial Whitetail Clover highly attractive and
palatable, it provides nutrition that helps pregnant does and antler-growing
bucks,” Scott said. “Even more important in farm country is that the rest of
the landscape is pretty bleak in spring. Of course, whitetails will flock to a
soybean field, but many of those aren’t planted until late April or May, and
not available as food until weeks later. Clover helps fill that critical
nutritional gap.”
Many of my farm-country compadres can wrap their minds around
the value of spring-time clover. They have more trouble with understanding the
value of annual food plots. This requires a little more preaching on my part.
Of course, I get that deer will often ignore smaller plots of brassicas, oats
or other green forage when ag fields offer the easy eats. But whitetails —
especially mature bucks — will often readily visit a secluded plot of annuals
en route to the farmer-planted salad bar, and often in daylight. Even more
important, these visits serve as the perfect primer for when annual plots
shine: as soon as the combines do their work and the plows hit the ag ground.
I see this scenario play out every fall, and this past year was
no different. In August, I planted a small plot behind my house we call the
“Log Landing” in Beets & Greens, one of Whitetail Institute’s newer
products. As they do every season, deer picked and nibbled at the plot when it
first greened up toward our mid-September bow opener. But as the fall
progressed, that little plot lit on fire. Of the many annual plots I planted,
the Log Landing was by far the most visited, and it got only better after the
crops were harvested, and even as the snow started to fly in the late season.
I’d have placed the odds of killing a mature buck or doe at that spot at 5 to 1
over any ag-field edge stand I’d hung.
Dirty Little Food Plot Tricks in Farm Country
I guess it should be clear I don’t waste effort trying to
compete with row crops or alfalfa fields. What I do, in the right situation, is
try to make a farmer’s offering just a bit better for deer. One of my favorite
ploys is to find a bean field next to timber and spice it up by seeding a
brassica or other annual between the rows late in the growing season. Here in
the Midwest, soybean leaves start yellowing and drooping in late August and
early September, which allows more light to reach the soil between the rows.
Then, the closer to harvest we get, the leaves turn brown and drop off. Just
before that leaf-drop is a perfect time to sow some aggressive annual
(Winter-Greens, Tall Tine Tubers and Beets & Greens are ideal for this
technique) between the rows. It’s critical, of course, to gain permission
before such a project, but most of the farmers I’ve asked have readily agreed.
Unless whitetail populations are really low, deer will likely have severely
limited the crop yields in the rows next to the woods, and many farmers count
these rows as a loss anyway.
The slick thing about that technique is it requires zero soil
disturbance. In fact, the ideal scenario is to sow the annual seed directly on
the soil surface. Then, when bean leaves drop, they cover the seed. Add a
well-timed rain or two and you’ve suddenly created a new green food source,
right when everything else in a whitetail’s world is turning brown. Even
better, few farmers in my area fall-plow bean fields, so I never worry that my
effort — which was as minimal as walking up and down bean rows cranking a
hand-crank spreader — is in vain.
If you are currently unaware of these red-hot farm-country deer
tips, work them in to your hunting plan for fall, and send thank-you letters to
me directly at the Whitetail News.
